By - One Acre Fund, oneacrefund.org

At the 2018 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), Rwandan President Paul Kagame said, “We have everything we need to succeed. We must start treating farmers as clients. They need the latest skills and services to increase their productivity.” At One Acre Fund, we agree. Treating farmers as clients ultimately will build our rural economies and support our the region’s farmers in becoming sustainable entrepreneurs.

So what does it meant to treat farmers as clients, rather than beneficiaries?

Approximately 500 million smallholder farmers in the developing world operate farms under 13 acres. They play an outsized role in reaching the U.N. Sustainable development goal of zero hunger. It is estimated that these smallholder farms operate on 12% of the world's agricultural land and produce 80% of the food consumed in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. And yet, these farmers often lack the training and access to resources to optimize their land. AgGrandize Global works to meet these needs through partnerships worldwide. The AGG team serves two distinct, but interdependent customers.

Sitting between Thailand and Vietnam, the country of Laos is marked by rugged mountains and one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world. This poverty fuels two of the largest industries in the Golden Triangle (Laos, Myanmar, Thailand): opium trade and human trafficking.

Jobs and the hope of the Gospel - they're needed here perhaps more than anywhere else. Fortunately, the Lao government has been implementing reforms meriting attention from US investors.